Mostly About Organized Crime

06/10/2012

Puerto Rico Is Smuggler's Paradise

Earlier this week the DEA busted dozens of airport workers -- including employees with American Airlines and Ground Motive Dependable -- for allegedly smuggling drugs on commercial flights from San Juan, Puerto Rico to the U.S. mainland over the last decade as reported by The Associated Press:

The arrests are a continuation of a September 2009 operation that targeted nine American Airlines workers accused of participating in the same drug ring. Federal authorities arrested ground crews with Ground Motive Dependable on similar charges in August 2010.

Puerto Rico is a major transit point in smuggling drugs into the United States as reported by Catherine Shoichet for CNN: "Puerto Rico's strategic geographic location between South America and the continental United States has long made the commonwealth a central drug transit hub, says Laila Rico, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration." Rampant corruption in the U.S. commonwealth doesn't help matters much: "in 2010, an FBI investigation into whether police provided protection for drug dealers led to the arrest of 89 law enforcement officers in Puerto Rico."